Cylinder printing-machine



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CYLINDER PRINTING MACHINE. No. 536,293. Patented Mar. 26,1895.

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No. 536,293... Patented Mar. 26,'1895.-

INVENTOR WITNESSES: f W m UNITED STATES PATENT O FIQE.

CHARLES POTTER, or PLIAINFIEVLD, NEW JERSEY.

CYLlNDER PRINTING-MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 536,293, dated March 26, 1895.

Application filed October 9,1893.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES Po'rrEaa citizen of the United States of America, residing at Plainfield, Union county, and State of New Jersey, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Cylinder Printing-Machines, of which the following is a description.

This invention relates generally to cylinder printing machines, and more particularly to the means for operating and controlling the motion of the impression cylinder or cylinders with respect to the bed.

It has for its object, among other things, to provide means whereby the impression cylinder is driven at the same surface speed as the bed during the taking of the impression and thereby obtain accurate register of the sheets and prevent any blurring of the impression.

Briefly stated, the improvements are embraced in a cylinder printing press having a bed, the reciprocating movements of which are imparted by a traveling gear moved by connections with the crank driving shaft and with an impression cylinder driven through gearing with the driving shaft, such gearing having an interposed compensating means by which the peculiar motions derived from a crank are reproduced or compensated for in driving the impression cylinder.

As a better understanding of the invention may be had from a detailed description of a printing machine embodying the invention, such description will now be given, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part hereof.

In said drawings, Figure 1 is a partial side elevation of the gear side of a cylinder printing machine, only so much of such machine being shown as is necessary to understand the arrangement of parts with which the invention is connected. Fig. 2 is-a vertical the line 5, 5, of Fig. 4.

Referring to said drawings the invention is illustrated in connection with a single impression cylinder machine, it being obvious Serial No. 487,560. (No model.)

that the improvements are not necessarily limited thereto. This machine embraces an impression cylinder A having grippers which as usual take the sheets from any suitable source of supply as for instance, from a feed board B and after printing, as one mode of delivery, deliver them to any of the usual delivery mechanisms which are not herein .shown as they form no part of the present invention. With the impression cylinder, there cooperates a reciprocating form bed E moved by a traveling gear F, which in turn is operated in the usual manner by a fixed rack G, the rack G on the under side of the-bed, and the revolving crank shaft H through the connecting rod I while the connecting rod may be connected directly to the crank shaft as is common in this class of machines, it is preferred to employ an epicyclic train for moving the crank wrist 12 with which the connecting rod I is directly connected, such construction being embraced in United States Letters Patent- No. 489,431, granted January 3, 1893, to John Brooks. p

The crank shaft H is driven from a driving shaft J by a pinion L fast to the latter shaft meshing with a gear wheel K fast to the crank shaft. Said gear K in turn carries a stud on which is mounted a planet wheel K that is in mesh with a sun wheel K on the crank shaft H. The planet wheel K carries the wrist 12 which is engaged by the connecting rod I as before described. The proportions of this gearing is such that for each complete turn of the gear wheel K the form bed E will have been reciprocated once in each direction and by reason of the epicyclic motion'imparted by the sun and planet wheels, the crank wrist 12 has been caused to travel substantially in a straight. line from right to left and back to right with respect to the horizontal plane through the axis of the sun wheel.

The impression cylinder is likewise driven from the driving shaft J through agear wheel L fast thereto, meshing with an intermediate wheel 20 which in turn meshes with a gear wheel 22, the latter having connection with the impression cylinder A for driving it in unison with the bed during the printing operation.

The gear wheel 22 is mounted to rotate loosely on a hub 23 fast to the side frame and slotted to permit the shaft A of the impres sion cylinder to project therethrough, the hub being mounted eccentric with respect to the axis of the impression cylinder for a purpose hereinafter described. The end of the shaft A carries a disk or arm 24, (the disk form being preferred because it partially incloses some of the mechanism) which disk is rigidly secured to the shaft and revolves with the cylinder. The gear wheel 22 carries a stud 25, the end of which enters the slot 26 of a movable compensating arm 27 that is connected to the disk or arm 24 as by a pivot stud 28. So far as described, it will be'observed that as the gear wheel 22 is driven by direct connection with the driving shaft and hence continuously revolved during the operation of the machine, its revolutions will be imparted to the impression cylinder through its stud 25, compensating arm 27 and disk or arm 24:. As the driving gear wheel 22 is mounted eccentric with respect to the axis of the impression cylinder, it follows that as the said gear wheel 22 revolves carrying the disk with it, its stud 25 moves along the slot 26 of the compensating arm 27, receding from and again approaching the axis of the disk and thus the constant surface speed of the gear wheel is so transmitted to the impression cylinder as to cause it to have a gradually changing surface speed; growing greater in speed as the speed of the form bed E increases and after reaching the maximum speed with the bed then gradually lessening its surface speed as the speed of the bed lessens, which change in speed of the form bed is dne'as is well known to the crank action driving the bed.

The eccentric setting of the driving gear wheel 22 and its slotted connection with the impression cylinder alone, has been found in practice, not entirely sufficient to obtain exact uniformity of speed between the form bed and cylinder at the time of making theimpression, and to obtain this exact uniformity is the object of this invention. It hasbeenfound that if the slotted connection between the driving gear and impression cylinder be moved independent of the rotation of the parts so that as the cylinder approaches its maximum speed there will be a slight delay followed by a slight acceleration in approaching such speed precisely, the speed of movement of the bed will be obtained in the impression cylinder. Any proper means for moving the slotted connections may obviously be used without departing from the essentials of the invention.

In the present embodiment of the invention the slotted arm 27 is mounted to rock within narrow limits on the pivot stud 28, and this arm is moved at the proper time by a fixed box cam 30, fastened in this case to the outer face of the eccentric hub 23, with which cam there engages a cam roll 31 projecting from an extension of the slotted arm 27.

As will be noticed from Fig. 3, as the parts revolve in the direction of the arrowand the cam roll 31 follows around in the cam 30, the

slotted end of the arm 27 will be first gradually tilted or rocked backward as the stud 25 approaches the upper end of the slot 26, and as the parts continue to revolve the slotted arm will then be rocked in the reverse direction, that is to say, its slotted end moves forward so that the maximum speed of the cylinder will be finally approached with a gradually increased acceleration. Thus as the im pression cylinder is making a half revolution, its speed is gradually accelerated by the eccentric setting of the driving gear wheel 22, and this accelerated speed. is modified by the rocking of the slotted arm 27. So too the gradually lessening speed of the cylinder in making the second half of its revolution is likewise modified by the rocking of the slotted arm 27 due to the formation of the cam 30, which in this case is formed to effect a modifying action of the speed twice in each revolution of the cylinder. This repetition of the modifying action in the speed of the impression cylinder need only be used where a greater portion of the circumference of the cylinder is used in printing long sheets, as it is obvious that should only short sheets be desired to be printed, asingle modifying action would be sufficient.

No means for raising the impression cylinder for the idle return movement of the form bed has been shown or described, as it is obvious any of the well known raising and lowering devicesmay be used, as, for instance, those set forth in United States Letters Patent No. 274,558. While this compensating device is shown as applied to a machine employing the epicyclic train before described for moving the form bed it is obvious it may be used with the ordinary plain crank connection, but the use of such train is preferred. So, also, while the compensating device has been described in connection with an impression cylinder per se, it is obvious that it may be used with any other cylinder or device in which a modifying action of a variable speed is needed, and hence the term im pression cylinder is to be considered generic, and not a specific device. While the disk 24.- is shown as distinct from the cylinder it is obvious that it may be the cylinder, that is to say, the slotted arm 27 may be carried directly by the piece whose variable speed it is desired to modify. On the other hand, the cylinder need not be on the same shaft with the disk 24:, but such disk may be a toothed wheel transmitting its modified irregular speed to a separated cylinder in gear therewith. It isobvious that instead of moving the slotted arm 27, the stud 25 may be moved by a similar mechanical means.

What is claimed is- 1. The combination with the reciprocating bed, and an impression cylinder coacting therewith, of the cylinder driving-gear mountedeccentric to the axis of the cylinder, a pivotally mounted arm carried with the cylinder, slotted connections between the driving gear and arm, and a cam for rocking the arm in 3. The combination of the impression cyl- I inder, an eccentrically mounted gear for driving the cylinder, a pivotally mounted slotted arm and connections interposed between the gear and the cylinder, and means for rocking said arm on its pivot, as set forth.

4. The combination of the impression cylinder, a slotted arm pivotally connected therewith, a driving gear mounted eccentrically.

with respect to the axis of the cylinder, a stud on the gear engaging the slot of the arm, and a cam for rocking the arm on its pivot as the parts revolve, as set forth.

In witness whereof Ihave hereunto signed my name in the presence of two witnesses.

CHARLES POTTER.

Witn esses A. T. GALLUP, J. P. ALLIs. 

